rocky isles of Britain, in amazing numbers. -See our last volume, pp. 288, 339.

To Dr. Philip Henry Poore, of Littleton, near Andover, we are indebted for the following notice respecting the king-fisher :- When a boy, being esteemed a great connoisseur in birds, two men brought

to me a nest of young king-fishers, consisting of five or six, I forget which: I well remember they had no feathers, and you could scarcely perceive the stubs in the wing, where the feathers first make their appearance—they were what the boys at school used to call “ single stubbed.”. I should conceive they could not be more than a week of ten days old. I gave them nothing but minnows to eat; and with that food alone they were reared till they got their wings and flew away. I shall forbear to mention the quantity of minnows the birds ate in the twenty-four hours, as it would appear to exceed all credibility. The men who brought them to me were digging chalk, and observed the king-fishers going in and out of a hole in the chalk pit, and, as they told me, the nest was found nearly a yard in from the outer opening.'

Amid the floral gaieties of autumn, may be reckoned the Guernsey lily, which is so conspicuous an object in October, in the windows and green-houses of florists in London and its vicinity. In mild seasons there are many flowers still in blow in this month, (see our previous volumes for an enumeration of them). In the mean time, we offer our readers one of the most beautiful tributes to the wall-flower we ever met with : it is as delicate and elegant as the fragrance of the flower it commemorates.

The WALL-Flower.
(By Delta, of Blackwood's Magazine.]
The wall-flower--the wall-flower,

How beautiful it blooms!
It gleams above the ruined tower,

Like sunlight over tombs;
It sheds a balo of repose

Around the wrecks of Time:
To beauty give the flaunting rose,

The wall-flower is sublime.
Flower of the solitary place!

Gray Ruin's golden crown!
That Jendest melancholy grace

To haunts of old renown:
Thou mantlest o'er the battlement,

By strife or storm decayed ;
And fillest up each envious rent

Time's canker-tooth hath made..
Thy roots, outspread the ramparts o'er,

Where, in war's stormy day,
The Douglases stood forth of yore

In battle's grim array:
The clangour of the field is fled,

The beacon on the hill
No more through midnight blazes red-

But thou art blooming still !
Wbither hath fled the choral band

Tbat filled the abbey's nave?
Yon dark sepulchral yew-trees stand

O'er many a level grave:
In the belfry's crevices the dove

Her young brood nurseth well,
Whilst thou, lone flower, dost shed above

A sweet decaying smell.

In the season of the tulip cup,

When blossoms clothe the trees,
How sweet to throw the lattice up,

And scent thee on the breeze:
Tbe butterfly is then abroad,

The bee is on the wing,
And on the hawthorn by the road

The lingets sit and sing.
Sweet wall-flower, sweet wall-flower!

Thou conjurest up to me
Full many a soft and sunny hour

Of boyhood's thoughtless glee,
When joy from out the daisies grew,

In woodland pastures green,
And summer skies were far more blue

Than since they e'er have been.
Now autumn's pensive voice is heard

Amid the yellow bowers,
The robin is the regal bird,

And thou the Queen of Flowers!
He sings on the laburnum trees,

Amid the twilight dim,
And Araby ne'er gave the breeze

Such scenes as thou to him.
Rich is the pink, the lily gay,

The rose is summer's guest;
Bland are thy charms when these decay,

Of flowers, first, last, and best!
There may be gaudier on the bower,

And statelier on the tree,
But wall-flower, loved wall-flower,
Thou art the flower for me!

Literary Souvenir, 1828. During the months of October, November, and December, at the fall of the leaf, insects become less numerous, but many of the Hemiptera may be found in woods, by beating the ferns and underwood, also many very beautiful Tineæand Tortrices, and aquatic insects may be taken in ponds, in great numbers. Roots of grass, decayed trees, &c. may again be resorted to.-Samouelle's Introduction to British Entomology, p. 316.

For an account of a curious manufacture produced by caterpillars, see our last volume, p. 286.

One of the most common objects in the vegetable kingdom, in this month, is the common bramble, with its blackberries. The growth of this plant is astonishing. Our Huntingdonshire correspondent informs us of a shoot that, in one year, measured eighteen feet eleven inches. The circumference, near the ground, was about two inches. It had risen on the side of a wild bank, in a glen, through which a road runs; and, shooting over the fork of a small ash tree, hung over to the road. The shoots of the bramble are used to briar graves in churchyards, to protect them from cattle; and, split into narrow shreds, they serve to bind the straw bandages of beehives.

NOUEMBER. THIS was named, as the preceding months, according to the station which it occupied in the Romulean calendar; it was the ninth. The sign Sagittarius was appropriated to this month.

Kemarkable Days

In NOVEMBER 1829.

1.- ALL SAINTS. This festival served to commemorate all those saints and martyrs to whom no separate day had been assigned. An account of an extraordinary exhibition at Lisbon, on this day, may be seen in T.T. for 1827, p. 345. Hallowe'en is the eve of this day, on which many superstitious ceremonies are still observed in distant parts of the United Kingdom ; see our former volumes.

A custom at Paris on the 1st of November, is thus noticed by a correspondent in the Literary Gazette:

The first instant was a grand day in Paris, la Fête des Morts. On this day, it is the custom of those who have lost any friends or relations in the course of the year to go to the cemetery, and visit the tombs of those they loved or admired. The cemetery of Père la Chaise was vi. sited by thousands and tens of thousands; many attracted by a holy sense of duty, and others from curiosity. The day was remarkably fine, and the scene was most interesting and affecting." On this day, the graves were adorned with fresh shrubs and flowers; the tombs were decorated with festoons and wreaths of flowers, and garlands of the immortal amaranth. Here the widow and the widower, the parent and the child, approached the spot that contained what they loved when living, and respected when no more-muttered a prayer for the blissful repose of the depart. ed, and deposited on the tomb a wreath of immortals. The grave of General Foy was literally covered with garlands; we saw several thrown on the tomb, and were surprised to find the parties were all of the lowest classes of society.